What i Think About Stuff-Man Of Steel

 Dun-dududun-duhduhduhduhduhdDUHDUHDUHDUH-DUNDUDDDUUUUNN-DUHDUHDUHDUH-DUHDUUNN!

What I Think About Stuff-Man Of Steel

Disclaimer: This is not strictly a review, but more of a short presentation on my opinion on Man Of Steel. If you were looking for a comprehensive analysis on the movie, then you won’t find it here. What you WILL find is the opinion of a Superman nerd on the latest movie. For a complete take-down, visit Rhamy Payne’s Cross-Up blog and follow his blow-by-blow analysis of the film’s flaws.

Holy shit, it’s a proper goddamn Superman movie! Finally the dudes over in DC decided to remove their head from their rectums and make a proper goddamn movie about the Last Son of Krypton! And it’s not about Lois Lane’s part-Kryptonian illegitimate love-child or Lex Luthor being an evil land-owner or any of that shit!

It’s about KAL FUCKING EL being a good dude and PUNCHING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF BAD DUDES! 

And he fights GENERAL FUCKING ZOD and they shoot lasers from their eyes and they’re flying the entire fucking time, holy shit!

But is it THE penultimate Superman movie? Or, to be more specific, is it up to snuff with say, Superman 2 (the movie that it is painfully obvious it was trying to become)? The answer is a half-hearted yes, but without too much no thrown in.

Zack Snyder apparently knew what he was doing, when he made the movie and decided to skip the unnecessary ‘Superman’s all alone in the Universe’ bullshit, as well as skim pas the ‘Mankind is in awe and fearful of Superman’ horseshit that has gripped almost every Superman storyline ever. He does not of course omit them entirely (because God forbid we just gave up on the Watchmen clichés that have not been relevant for the past two decades), but he does try to his best to create the story of the origin of the mythos of the Man of Steel, using as many of the best and greatest Superman comic book stories as fodder. Seasoned nerds will be able to tell them immediately, of course

Like, for example, the Kryptonian fauna designs lifted straight from Alan Moore’s the Jungle Line

Does that make the movie perfect? No, of course not. Does it make it WWWAAAYYYY better than all those other pieces of shit made between Superman 2 and this current date? Fuck yeah, it does!

Though I have to admit that I thought the Nuclear Man was pretty fucking boss.

So here’s a list of things I really liked about Man Of Steel:

·         The movie was an honest, actual Superman movie:

Complete with Clark’s Journey through the world, his origins, his contrast with ‘vanilla’ humanity, his pesky little love interest and, of course, tons of punching. While it did contrast with the established mythos of the Man of Steel (more on that later), this was still an earnest attempt at making up for the mistakes of previous filmmakers and re-introducing the most iconic superhuman of all time to audiences.

·         There was like, a ton of epic punching and shit:

Orbital satellites to the face, this awesome effect where you blink and she’s in your face, punching out your brain, the flying and the zooming and the collateral damage and the car-throwing and OH MY FUCKING GOD, WOOO!

·         Superman’s relationship with his parents was better defined in a shorter amount of time:

I liked how Man of Steel squeezed Superman’s relationship with his adopted family in the course of the narrative. I found it to be a nice touch and the way that the Kents were represented remade them from plain old country bumpkins with tractors and an infinite reserve of patience into a pretty interesting, tough-as-nails pair and a damn good example of humnanity. I was, however, averse to how they changed Jonathan’s death from the result of a heart attack (which further accentuated the fact that Superman can’t stop everything) and went for the more cinematic approach. I also did not like how he died saving a fucking dog. I mean no offence to you animal lovers and stuff, but a man like that shouldn’t have sacrificed his life over a goddamn animal, period.

·         Lois Lane was NOT written as a dumb, insufferable cunt:

Which surprised me, because lately that was pretty much the most comprehensive definition of her character: a sassy reporter who always gets in situations that are waaay over her head and needs to be rescued, but then always talks back to the demigod who has the hots for her.

“What was that? The alien titan wants to do you? Have a free bomber!”

Instead, we get a pretty interesting, backsassing character who goes the distance to find out Superman’s identity and IS NOT FOOLED BY THE FUCKING GLASSES FOR EVEN ONE SECOND. Which I found to be pretty awesome. The fact that she is given emergency powers as a goddamn bomber pilot crew and the authority equivalent to a brigadier general was kind of a turn-off, though.

And now, here are the things I did NOT like about Man of Steel:

·         Collateral Damage:

Here’s a free tip for everyone who’s never read Superman stories before: Superman is not very much a fan of collateral damage. He’s not into people being hurt or property destroyed during his punch-outs. When someone tears down a building, Superman will stop fighting, go back and weld it back into place, even placing himself in danger. When someone flings a car at a chopper, Superman will fly into said car’s way. 

When a pair of Krypton-Nazis start punching him in the middle of Main Street in Podunk, Illinois, he will not just say “Go back in, it’s not safe” he will instead do his absolute best to move his opponents away from any populated areas so they can beat the living crap out of each other, unimpeded.

Jesus Christ, man. Even fucking Goku took the fight someplace else. Why couldn’t the Last Son of Krypton?

And Goku’s a fucking idiot, to boot.

·         Nazis are from Krypton, Mankind is from Earth

“Zis is ReichsFuhrer Zod. I vould like to inform ze people of Earth zat ve are not a blatant rip-off of a totalitarian state that existed in your vorld seventy years ago. Ve are merely vehement supporters of a culture ov eugenics, racial purity und consider ozer races undeserving of our acknowledgement. Ve also vear black and vould vear swastikas on our chest, had ve known vat swastikas vere in ze first place. 

Anything you vould like to add, Kryptonian rip-off of Dr. Mengele?”

“Nein, my Fuhrer”

“How about you, Krypton-Nazi dominatrix?”

“Nein, mein Fuhrer, danke-shon.”

 

“Ser Gut. To Victory! Sieg Heil!”

“Sieg Heil!”

·         How Can ‘Murica trust you?

So the Last Son of Krypton saves the Earth from certain doom at the hands of invincible alien Nazis, bangs a hot chick and plays the dog-and-pony show of pretending to yield to human authority and the American government still can’t trust him?

This isn’t anything new in comics: mankind being fearful of the superhuman factor, but you know what? It’s a trope that needs to change. This whole business, about the US being this paranoid force which expends huge funds into the surveillance of its superhumans and in seeking means to kill them reeks of the Cold War and, frankly, the Cold War is no longer interesting or funny.

Or relevant, for that matter.

If any governments ought to be distrustful of Superman, it should be every other government in the world, who were almost annihilated and saved by a mysterious force that threatened to exterminate humanity in the process of xeno-forming the world and were not given a single explanation on what the fuck went on!

·         So Much Shit going on at once:

Man of Steel tried to be 3 movies at once: an origin story, an action movie and a romantic movie based on unraveling the mystery of the invincible man-god in spandex.

All this, while Superman was discovering his powers and trying to find out his limits and his purpose and 2while trying to establish the new movie universe, in 150 minutes of movie runtime. And it was confusing as all hell.

While some pretty clever stunts were pulled (like say, the General Zod dream sequence and the Kent flashbacks), there was just too much setting-clutter that was vomited into our faces and overall hurt the movie. If, perhaps, the production team hadn’t been so caught up with presenting EVERYTHING AT THE SAME TIME, this movie would have been so much better.

·         No Lex Luthor

 

There was that LexCorp truck, though.

Yeah no, fuck you. It’s either all Luthor or no Luthor. 

Lex don’t compromise, baby.

Addendum:
So Berkeley University's literary magazine, Imaginarium, wants a story of mine and I finally got off two professional publications! Two! Holy crap!

One's for the LeoDeGraunche anthology and this is a shout-out to their editors, who liked my story Bunker Blues, which will appear in the coming issue.

The other's for the Unidentified Funny Objcts! 2 anthology and I have to ne honest, this one had me doing happy little jigs for days, man!

---

Post a Comment